


ars moriendi. (if his hands were mine)

by willbyersprotectionsquad



Category: Frühlings Erwachen | Spring Awakening - Frank Wedekind, Spring Awakening - Sheik/Sater
Genre: Cw: implied suicide, M/M, and yes it's in first person i know i cringed too, i wrote this like a year ago???, le epic low self confidence!!!!, mortiz idolizes melchior to an unhealthy extent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-11
Updated: 2019-08-11
Packaged: 2020-08-18 23:05:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20199655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/willbyersprotectionsquad/pseuds/willbyersprotectionsquad
Summary: excerpts from moritz's diary.





	ars moriendi. (if his hands were mine)

i.

I woke with a start. How many times have I reached to write this? My hands tremble, honestly, they do! This pen is all that keeps me from silencing their silver whispers. I am not usually one to busy myself with work. O, what nonsense pleasure has wrought! This insatiable twisting of the gut, as if I, too, am unraveling with it. If one were to touch, perhaps I would crumble away all together! What an awful thought, though warranted it is... No, I shouldn’t think about it. Not now. Not ever.

I simply must speak to Melchi about these transgressions, but if he were to laugh? Or even scorn my worries? The light of day would never grace me again and how I would deserve it!

The subject is too tender. I will wait until morning and maybe even a thousand beyond that. If I were to tell the confidences I lay before this journal into the open, to Melchior, the very source of these stirrings, would he not recoil? I would. Any sane man would and that’s God’s truth. And if he were to take my place and these dreams to touch him as he willed - visions of a friend in festered sin - what then? Is this not what man sees before his end? Legs upon legs, every kick a curse to Heaven!

My thoughts have traveled away from me. Sixty spaces would not be enough to fill the seat of this terrible phantom called lust. I pray tomorrow will have my remedy.

(From his knees, Moritz returns to bed. “Silly,” rolls off the tongue of his wit in a silent prayer, but the voice isn’t his to claim.)

ii.

I worked up the courage! What a feat for the dormouse! They should see me now! He met my worries with a laugh - none too devilish, but as fragrant as the spring to come, and how close I came to slipping from the grip of consciousness! I felt as if all of my being were engulfed and hollowed at once. I am left to hope Melchi hadn’t noticed, even if I don’t deserve the dignity. The constant thrum of my all resonates in these pages and like an Angel or even more, his response was plentiful as if he truly understood the longing I’ve felt. My resolve has both blurred and risen with the answer so close. Do I dare? 

“On Consummation,” he calls it, as if one should be so stiff! I’ve seen the way his lips quirk in his talks, his laugh as sweet as the summer wind, full of a sheepishness that never knew him, not even in our childhood. Please, it couldn’t possibly. I should rather claim it for myself! His offer to complete my Virgil, equations, and paper wasn’t so easily refused, but I was forced - forced by mind and body as if I had become possessed. Truly possessed! I wouldn’t have told a soul if it were in my hands. Honestly. Where on Earth did he find all this? Surely Frau Gabor would not have permitted it, with her quick denial of the reading required of us. She trusts in us both. This embarrassment is shared between Melchi and I, among others I dare not mention, not even here. To think: ten whole pages!

The girl holds my thoughts and in her motions, carries me with her. These illustrations have awoken me to the body where only my dreams can reach, each curve as if taken in Adam's image. And dear Melchi, if you only knew.

I’ll cast my doubts aside for the night. Conjugation, at this point, has no bearing if I can’t steady myself to write. If my ear is boxed again, I should think it to fall off entirely! And even then... 

(In the margins is scribbled a quick “oh, yes. Before I forget: Think what Aeneas suffered!”)

  


iii.

I wish to not have known. Damn it all! A hundred times over have I hoped I could be meek and coy and all the things that accompany innocent devotion. I have sheltered these feelings enough in the day where the distractions of eyes and hands are reserved for the dark. Melchi had no ill intentions, I’m sure of it, but this curse has reached beyond that of his control. Tomorrow, and tomorrow again becomes my religion and still I pray at his feet! I would in truth! If he could banish these leaden thoughts, the devotion I’ve quieted through the years should find him. Forgive my trembling hands, for these words betray me. What I could not, should not, speak is kept in this memoir. I’ll hide them here and never let them see. I’ll die before it!

I’ll replay the night’s events, anything so my soul will rest! Or should I start at the beginning? My heart, it’s racing. Really, it is! A night so usual should not have me so wound, and yet I can hardly tear my thoughts away from it. It began like this: Melchi and I were in his study, our bags cast aside and out of mind. My back ached with how often I leaned like this over his work, the same the very night before. Only if I knew the relief to come.

The words. O, if I could hear them but once more, Heaven would fall to pieces!

“How the woman should feel. It haunts me, Melchior,” said a voice so sad, it’s no wonder he took pity. I told him just like that into the open air! I feel like a child again. Why had I confessed that? If his hands were mine, surely I would have covered myself, hid myself from the conviction of the world.

“You feel that way. Really, Moritz?”

A chorus of Angels looked down at us and smiled. Christ, it played like some twisted dream! He ripped the essay from my hands and I thought I was to be stricken. Truly! Sticky and terse like that of some broken fruit, he felt the prize of his efforts. His - no, my hands stroked down the face, then circled the chest, then inconceivably lower - in ways I had only seen in my darkest hours. Like God had given me His voice and His hands to Melchior, I felt true bliss. I returned like some schoolgirl, a damned schoolgirl! The film over my eyes and brain lifted without his touch.

“Moritz, not that I’m saying I myself have ever -- “

Ten muzzles couldn’t secure what was to come.

“ Not that I’m saying I wouldn't, I wouldn't want to not…Would ever not want to!” How eloquent! Every second I leave the page, my head is held in the shame. My question was indeed answered, but what I would give to hold him like that once more. 

Sleep eludes me. I've lost my head, no doubt! 

...He’s had his fill of my problems. I refuse to keep him, or anyone, with this affliction any longer. I couldn’t face him. I can never face him again. Damn it all!

(The match’s lick halts between two wet and unsteady fingers. Silver thoughts turn into action and he’d rather face the barrel of his gun than Melchior again. When he rose from his grave, heaven fell.)


End file.
